At 2:30 AM, the research institute remained bathed in artificial light.

  No matter the brightness, exhaustion still crept in.

  The security guards outside the perimeter were already glazed, barely stifling yawns as sleep weighed heavy behind their eyes.

  Unnoticed, a shadow the size of a washbasin slithered past like a whisper.

  That dark shape slipped through the front gate and entered the courtyard.

  It melted into the shadows of an armed security team patrolling with rifles and visors.

  The shadow flowed like smoke, drawing closer to the buildings housing the experimental departments.

  SWOOSH~

  SWOOSH~

  It passed several patrol teams without raising an alarm.

  Eventually, the shadow arrived at a laboratory.

  Timing the surveillance camera's pivot perfectly, it lunged inside.

  The hallways were brightly lit, so the shadow hid behind a row of filing cabinets.

  It waited for a human host.

  A bald scientist soon walked through the corridor, hands in his lab coat.

  The shadow darted into the man's shadow like a parasite.

  It hopped from one scientist to the next like a virus.

  Until finally, it arrived at the innermost sanctum.

  The place where Vuron’s skull was sealed.

  Now came the hard part: extracting the skull without alerting that one.

  If he noticed, there would only be Death.

  “The mass spectrometer seems off.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  Listening to the scientists, the shadow looked at the air conditioner on the wall.

  Suddenly, it extended several thin tendrils, slick like black serpents, and burrowed inside the unit.

  BANG! BANG BANG BANG!

  Dull thuds sounded followed by black smoke.

  In a corner, the shadow trembled and began drawing in surrounding heat at an incredible pace.

  WHOOOSH WHOOOSH~

  Glass fogged and iced over instantly. Cups of water froze solid.

  Within minutes, every scientist was shivering uncontrollably, their breath visible.

  “Is the AC busted? I can’t take this.”

  The scientists hurried out, huddling against the cold.

  As the doors thudded shut, the shadow on the floor rose.

  It cracked open, and a figure emerged.

  Abram.

  His grin stretched ear to ear.

  “Heh heh...”

  He swaggered up to the platform, gazing at the radiant, skull-shaped relic.

  “So what if you’re a living nuclear warhead? I’m taking your treasure, and what are you gonna do about it?”

  He reached for the Vuron skull.

  Then, a voice sounded right beside his ear.

  “Oh, is that so?”

  Abram’s body locked. Smugness was replaced by soul-piercing terror.

  ‘I’m going to die.’

  He tried to slip into shadow form, but—

  BUZZ~

  A vast force enveloped Abram from head to toe, locking every nerve.

  It was Seraphine's telekinetic power.

  She had descended like a silent blade.

  Strangely, the force was drawn into a rippling vortex at the edge of Abram's body, vanishing into darkness.

  "Hm?"

  Seraphine let out a sound of curiosity. Her Mental Power surged like a collapsing tide, spilling outward and completely immobilizing Abram.

  BUZZ~

  Seraphine drifted down, hands behind her back. Her eyes shimmered with divine light.

  “Interesting… What kind of ability managed to consume telekinetic force?”

  She pointed a finger at Abram’s forehead.

  In an instant, his memory structure was extracted.

  《Twilight Dominion》 activated, purging irrelevant fragments.

  His superpowers, combat experience, and organizational data were seamlessly uploaded into Seraphine’s mind.

  “Let’s see…”

  BUZZ BUZZ~

  As her consciousness stirred, vast chunks of data unfolded inside her thoughts.

  ...

  Abram · Arisandra.

  A citizen of the Federation, born in Beaconreach. A natural superpower user, of mixed Black and White descent.

  Identity: Core member of the Frankenstein Cult.

  Codename: Dark Star.

  He possesses four distinct superpowers:

  Presence Concealment: Diminishes the subject’s perceptual presence in others’ senses, affecting sound, sight, vibration, and more.

  Heat Energy Absorption and Release: As the name implies. High absorption and release efficiency, with tremendous energy storage capacity. Capable of extremely fast freezing or combustion.

  Far Exceeding Ordinary Physique: Virtually immune to conventional blades or projectiles; unarmed strikes carry tens of tons of force.

  Shadow Domain: Allows full conversion of the body into shadow to dodge physical attacks. Also enables conjuration of weapons, such as knives, axes, hammers, threads, and rods, formed from condensed shadow, usable for offense or destruction.

  ...

  “Impressive,” Seraphine murmured with mild delight, glancing at the paralyzed Abram.

  “This is the first time I’ve encountered a superpower user with such a wide spread of abilities.”

  She tilted her head slightly and smiled.

  “It must have been the work of the Abraham Machine, wasn’t it?”

  The moment that name left her lips, Abram's pupils contracted sharply. Pure panic flooded his eyes.

  Clearly, he was shocked beyond reason that Seraphine knew about the organization's most protected secret.

  But Seraphine didn’t care what he thought.

  She delved deeper into his memory stream at her own pace.

  One vivid series of scenes unfolded: Abram’s origins, and the cult behind him.

  A shadowy force known as the Frankenstein Cult.

  Its original name was the Flesh Mysticism Sect, a heretical group born in the medieval era on the continent of Eliondra.

  They believed the human body was far too feeble to ascend into the Kingdom of Heaven.

  Only through forbidden arts like witchcraft and grotesque bodily alterations could humanity achieve transcendence.

  Only then could one become a Child of God.

  Because of such twisted ideology, the sect was swiftly reviled and hunted in the streets by torch and blade.

  Yet they never vanished. They simply doubled down.

  They stole corpses and performed rites in secret.

  They cut, grafted, and transformed themselves, always chasing power that would let them rise above mankind’s fragile limits.

  In a strange twist of fate, this organization actually helped advance clinical medicine on Earth.

  As centuries rolled forward, the Flesh Mysticism Sect shifted its focus toward the cutting edge of life sciences.

  Even during the steam age, they had already discovered the structure of human genes and genetic inheritance.

  From there, the Sect dug deep, becoming embedded in the fields of medicine, biological science, and military engineering.

  Now, that ancient cult has evolved into a vast, secretive transnational entity known as:

  The Sacred Zone Research Society

  It is a conglomerate of pharmaceutical companies and arms contractors, all of it a smokescreen for something far darker.

  Behind the veil, they carry out human experimentation on a global scale.

  Even their own members have undergone varying degrees of body modification.

  In short, within the Sacred Zone Research Society, there is almost no one left who is fully human.

  Among them is Abram, whose public identity is a senior executive at Frankenstein Company, but in truth:

  He is the ace operative of the Sacred Society’s intelligence division.

  He is one of the organization’s most exceptional engineered products.

  Together with five others, he forms an elite group known as:

  The Hexagram

  These five are also powerful superpower users, each with abilities more formidable than Abram's.

  ...

  ★ Bright Star : Sawyer · Arisandra

  Another top agent from the Frankenstein intelligence department, and Abram’s brother. A mixed-race man of black and white descent.

  Sawyer can fossilize his bodily structure. After absorbing a certain threshold of kinetic or thermal energy, he channels it to strengthen the chemical bonds within his crystalline form, drastically increasing his physical durability.

  He can also convert stored energy into high-energy laser beams.

  However, his energy capacity appears to have a relatively low ceiling.

  ★ Sky Star : Domingo · Flander

  Chief of security at Frankenstein Company headquarters.

  He commands large-scale storms and lightning, and his telekinetic field is strong enough to crush a formation of heavy tanks with ease.

  ★ Purgatory Star : Simian · Ntuo

  Commander of the company’s rapid deployment forces.

  Capable of emitting temperatures exceeding 9,000°C, equivalent to the solar surface. His body has been modified to perfectly withstand such extremes, suffering zero damage or discomfort.

  He also absorbs kinetic, thermal, and light energy, rendering him nearly invulnerable to physical attacks.

  ★ Nightmare Star : Sorren · Duskjade

  Director of the neuro-brain science division at the research facility.

  Although biologically human, Sorren is a militant supremacist. After awakening her abilities, she developed a deep-seated contempt for anyone unmodified or weak.

  She possesses a wide range of psychic powers: telepathy, psi-scanning, neural networking, and thought projection.

  She is a pure Psychic Master, wholly devoted to the evolution of mental power.

  But her true capabilities are rumored to lie within the domain of dreams.

  ★ Catastrophe Star : Saloyan · Atley

  Director of the company’s intelligence department.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Gifted with the terrifying ability to vibrate matter at a molecular level.

  In his hands, ordinary materials disintegrate like paper; his destructive power is beyond comprehension.

  Even after serving under him for years, Abram still knows very little about Saloyan’s full capabilities.

  ...

  Though they are collectively known as the Hexagram, their status within the organization is far from equal.

  When Seraphine delved into Abram’s memory, she saw the truth.

  He and Sawyer were little more than elite enforcers.

  But the Sky Star, Purgatory Star, and Catastrophe Star, all high-ranking white superpower users, were the true upper echelon of the Sacred Society.

  As for Sorren, her position was unique.

  Not only was she the leader of the Flesh and Blood Mysticism Sect, but also the mistress of Monroe · Holmes, the founder of Frankenstein Company.

  Because of that, her status is in no way inferior to the top-tier leadership.

  Monroe, the true master of the Sacred Society.

  His whereabouts remain shrouded in secrecy, and information about him is vanishingly rare.

  Even Abram, a long-standing member of the Hexagram, knows very little about the man’s inner workings.

  All he knows is that Monroe seems to have lived far longer than any normal human should.

  He maintains deep and discreet ties with Beaconreach’s military command, high-level political figures, and the most powerful corporate conglomerates.

  Even the arrogant Hexagram never dare show the slightest insolence in front of Monroe · Holmes.

  Of course, none of them truly understand the extent of his power.

  In short:

  Everyone seems to be hiding something.

  And that includes Abram.

  The strange ability he just displayed, absorbing a trace of Seraphine’s telekinetic energy, was no ordinary technique.

  It was his most guarded secret: the Box of Hephaestus.

  Abram unearthed this arcane witchcraft during a covert mission in Eliondra, among the ruins of an ancient civilization lost on a desolate island in the Aegean Sea.

  “It can store matter... and even energy?”

  Seraphine thoughtfully rubbed her chin, her senses locked onto the residual traces of the witchcraft. A flicker of genuine excitement lit up her face.

  “I didn’t expect such ‘witchcraft’ to be this extraordinary.”

  Put simply, crudely even:

  The Box of Hephaestus allows its wielder to inject mental energy into the rifts between spatial layers of the physical world.

  Opening and stabilizing a Dimensional Pocket, the storage capacity of which is directly tied to the strength of the user’s soul.

  “This is spatial storage... No, more like a variant of the Gate of Babylon.”

  Seraphine murmured, eyes narrowing in contemplation.

  “Western witchcraft doesn’t get much attention in the original work, but it’s been hinted that the system is immensely complex, its roots obscured by time and mystery.

  It can even absorb and store incoming energy... I’ve never seen such a mechanism in any other system I’ve studied.”

  “I should probably send someone to Eliondra. Just in case. See what else is buried under the earth.”

  Still, Seraphine had no intention of going herself.

  The abrupt emergence of such advanced arcana made her cautious.

  This wasn’t just a narrative twist.

  It was a plot deviation, a significant one.

  Something, someone, in Eliondra might be more powerful than anticipated.

  After a long silence, Seraphine muttered:

  “There’s still not a single lead on the Abraham Machine... Monroe must be hiding it.”

  She turned toward the now-bewildered Abram and said coldly:

  “Looks like you’ll have to play a little infiltration game for me.”

  As the words left her mouth, an unnatural light flared in her eyes.

  In that instant, she forcefully invaded Abram’s soul with her psychic energy.

  She began activating 《Mind Suppression Seal》.

  Mind Suppression Seal: An advanced spiritual technique developed by Seraphine, built upon her oceanic reserves of psychic power, fused with the soul-binding and control arts of the Heavenreach Sect and the fatalistic fate art of Monk Liora.

  Once unleashed, it overrides and suppresses the subject’s core with overwhelming dominance.

  It is, in essence, an emergency version of brainwashing.

  No, that term is far too crude.

  This is no simple overwrite of neural data.

  This is a soul cleansing.

  A spiritual overwrite at the deepest level.

  The technique consists of two components: the mother seal, rooted deep within Seraphine’s soul, and the child seal, engraved into the soul of the target.

  Once the seal is set, the target becomes unconditionally loyal to the master of the mother seal.

  They will obey Seraphine’s every command as though it were law.

  Even an order to self-destruct would be followed without hesitation.

  But it doesn’t stop there.

  The Imprinted Slave also becomes a spiritual anchor, a vessel for the caster’s consciousness.

  Through this link, Seraphine can transmit her will and psychic essence across thousands, even tens of thousands, of miles, using the Alaya Consciousness buried within all sentient minds.

  Temporarily, she may seize total control of the slave’s body, effectively making them her remote avatar.

  So absolute. So terrifying.

  Even Seraphine, its creator, had been shocked by the technique’s brutality.

  But no technique is without flaw.

  According to her own spiritual research, at the core of every soul lies an indestructible origin, a flicker of will that transcends domination.

  All sentient functions, thought, creativity, wisdom, and emotions, spring from this core.

  Once this center is suppressed, all potential is muted.

  The subject becomes emotionally numb, mentally faded, and fundamentally broken, unable to grow, think, or evolve.

  That is why the Mind Suppression Seal is never used lightly.

  Unless the target is meant to become a total instrument, a vessel of pure obedience.

  And for now, Abram was the perfect candidate.

  Moments later, with the child seal fully embedded:

  His once-vibrant soul and lively will flickered, dulled, and extinguished.

  Outwardly, little changed, only a slight coldness passed over his face.

  But something fundamental was gone.

  Then, regaining motor control, Abram dropped to one knee before Seraphine and said in a voice flat yet reverent:

  “Master.”

  Seraphine gave a nod.

  “Return to the cult. Do whatever it takes to locate the Abraham Machine. Even if it costs you your life.”

  “As you command, my master.”

  At her side, a test tube lifted into the air, carried by invisible psychic tendrils.

  Floating inside the nutrient solution were delicate, shimmering threads of gray-white matter.

  “This... is Vuron bone powder.”

  Seraphine spoke again, her tone calm but firm. “You can use this to report.”

  Abram took the test tube with both hands, bowed slightly in deference, and replied, “Understood, Master.”

  Without another word, his figure shrank and collapsed into a swirling mass of black shadow, gone in an instant, vanishing from the lab.

  The moment he left, Seraphine’s own body began to fade. Her form wavered, scattered like mist, and disappeared altogether.

  It had merely been a projection, an echo of her true will.

  Far away, more than a thousand kilometers from Earth, somewhere in the vast expanse of space, Seraphine’s real body opened her eyes.

  “Let’s try it here,” she murmured. “Let’s test this so-called spatial witchcraft.”

  Without hesitation, she began channeling her soul, operating it at blinding speed following the precise sequence required by the witchcraft known as the Box of Hephaestus.

  Within a single second:

  The complex spell, one that had taken Abram a full ten years of painstaking work just to cultivate once, was effortlessly unraveled and mastered by Seraphine.

  “Hmph... so the energy used by these sorcerers is essentially Ether, just under another name.”

  “They call it Primis.”

  “And the specific kind required for this witchcraft is spatial attribute Primis, in other words, the Ether which the practitioner perceives as having spatial characteristics.”

  Her soul power burst outward like a silent shockwave, pulling in massive streams of Ether from the cosmic void around her.

  “Start from the innate spark within the soul. Locate the spatial distortions in reality, and take that as the center.”

  “Then, mold Ether into a construct using the soul itself as the vessel.”

  “Consume spatial Primis, and form a spatial anchor point.”

  The Eye of True Revelation ignited within her. A gleaming light flared behind her pupils as she stared ahead.

  Where once the void had seemed empty, it now twisted, layered, and overlapped in her vision, distorted by the lens of witchcraft. This was the Primis Vision, a bizarre new sensory framework yet to be fully understood.

  Through it, the practitioner could cast aside both internal distractions and external logic, directly “seeing” the exact frequency of Primis required for the technique they wished to wield.

  In many ways, it resembled the mindset required for cultivating Starlit Sword Qi.

  Both paths demanded the rejection of established reality, complete immersion into an abstract, imagined system of rules.

  Faith in one's own perception was the only anchor.

  And Ether, ever-responsive, would reshape itself to match that perception.

  Such cultivation required extreme mental discipline and absolute focus. Without those, failure was inevitable.

  Seraphine’s pupils flickered with light.

  BZZT!

  Suddenly, faint wrinkles formed in the fabric of space ahead of her, delicate distortions almost impossible to detect.

  Her mental power surged, locking onto one.

  Like a fish sensing danger, the wrinkle instinctively tried to slip away.

  Seraphine struck.

  Her will snapped outward, seizing the space wrinkle like a lasso, and violently injecting it with spatial Primis until it crackled with unstable energy.

  With a sharp, invisible thrust, she embedded it deep into her soul.

  BZZZZZT!

  A heartbeat later, a faint silhouette began to form.

  The Dimensional Pocket was born.

  From Abram’s own memories, Seraphine recalled an important restriction: the pocket could only be shaped once. Its size and configuration would be locked forever after formation.

  Abram had barely managed to carve out a hundred cubic meters.

  Even that had been an extraordinary feat.

  “The soul acts as a shovel,” she mused. “Digging out a crater inside the node of space itself. The wider the crater, the more room there is for the pocket.”

  She focused.

  ZIZZLE!

  Her soul power reshaped itself into a spectral shovel of pure force.

  In a flash, it plunged into the tiny node now anchored in her spirit, no larger than a grain of rice.

  She pulled.

  BANG!

  Like a detonated charge, the node expanded violently, exploding outward to several hundred thousand cubic meters.

  She didn’t stop.

  Her shovel struck again, and again.

  The pocket expanded, swallowing more of the void.

  One minute.

  Five minutes.

  Ten minutes...

  With every pass, the digging grew harder, like drilling into bedrock.

  Eventually, it became immovable.

  She released the tool.

  "So... that’s the limit?"

  Seraphine examined her work.

  By rough calculation, her Dimensional Pocket now held over one trillion cubic meters of volume.

  Enough to swallow an entire city.

  She whispered to herself: “Abram’s soul power... maybe a dozen points at best.”

  “Mine outstrips his by billions. So this scale... checks out.”

  Just then, a shard of space debris drifted past her.

  With a flick of her thoughts, space itself rippled.

  A vortex appeared ahead of the debris’s path, utterly invisible.

  WHOOSH!

  The debris vanished into the portal, instantly transported into her Dimensional Pocket.

  Another flick of thought, and the debris was expelled, reappearing before her.

  She smiled faintly.

  “Not bad. The handling is smooth.”

  Thinking along those lines, Seraphine brought up her attribute panel:

  【Host: Seraphine】

  【Physical Strength: 72.238 billion】

  【Soul: 73.886 billion】

  As expected, after just one more day, her stats had once again surged forward.

  Without hesitation, she raised her hand and slashed a bolt of Skyveil Lightning into the Dimensional Pocket.

  A flash of white: then silence.

  Yet to her surprise, the lightning spell didn’t dissipate. Instead, it remained suspended, as if embedded in reality itself, hovering silently in a far corner of the immense space.

  Seraphine’s eyes sparkled.

  “So the Dimensional Pocket really can be used as a weapons depot...”

  She narrowed her gaze.

  “Still, what is the actual foundation that holds this thing together?”

  “Even with a soul attribute in the tens of billions, the ability to carve out a massive, stable, and real space from nothing, this goes far beyond anything in my current framework of knowledge. It defies internal logic.”

  “There must be something I’m missing. A fundamental constant I can’t yet perceive, or some external force operating beyond this reality.”

  She pondered for a long time. Then suddenly:

  “The Spiritual Dimension... could it be that?”

  She immediately activated the Eye of True Revelation, letting it run calculations at full throttle. But lacking core information, she could only sense a vague resonance; yes, the Dimensional Pocket was indeed somehow tethered to the Spiritual Dimension.

  “...Forget it. I’ll crack it eventually.”

  She closed the topic for now.

  ...

  Zen City, south of Emberlight.

  Within the sprawling estate of the once-proud Chur Family:

  “What did you say? The Heavenreach Sect was annihilated by... her disciple?!”

  “And she’s... the number one under heaven?!”

  Xander could barely keep his voice from cracking under the weight of disbelief and dread.

  “This… This is absurd! What about Xelorian? The Sword Immortal’s divine techniques are legendary! He didn’t stop them?!”

  Across from him, Daoist Hakuzi wore a bitter, weary smile.

  “My master... Xelorian fell. He was slain by the Heir at the Martial Arts Convention.”

  “W–What?!”

  Xander’s entire frame shuddered as if the floor had vanished beneath him.

  The old Daoist sighed deeply.

  “That day, I found one last surviving disciple from Heavenreach buried in the rubble, barely alive. What he told me… it changed everything.”

  Beside them, Meira sat frozen, her mind refusing to grasp the reality unraveling around her.

  Hakuzi continued.

  “I later consulted several of the senior martial artists across the realm. Though most refused to speak... I managed to pry the truth from a half-retired old friend.”

  His voice lowered, heavy with fear.

  “On the opening day of the convention, an Evershield Body challenged her.”

  “He died on the spot, his body shattered by the lightning she summoned with her bare hands.”

  The tale unfolded like a creeping nightmare. When Xander and Meira heard how Seraphine killed Baek with a single blow… defeated Veritas with just one finger… and forced Xelorian to retreat with a single roar:

  They were stunned speechless.

  Then came the mention of Velos, once a prime among martial champions, who appeared suddenly, slaughtering rivals… only to be effortlessly crushed by the returning Seraphine.

  The couple went completely pale, their bodies trembling uncontrollably. Before they could even begin to process it, Hakuzi added:

  “Her cultivation has already broken through the Evershield Body realm.”

  “She now stands above all others. Revered across north and south, by ancient masters and modern legends alike, as the undisputed Number One.”

  The light in Xander’s eyes went dim. Meira sat as though hollowed out.

  “Oddly enough, all information regarding the Heir used to be tightly censored,” Hakuzi muttered. “But a few days ago, it just… lifted. As if someone wanted the world to know.”

  “Without that, I’d never have been able to learn so much.”

  Xander and Meira didn’t respond. Their minds had short-circuited, systems overrun by a tide of horror and helplessness.

  Meira finally broke the silence, her voice hollow, lips trembling: “It’s over... It’s all over...”

  And had they known the true cause of the Ashara Explosion, they likely would have blacked out on the spot. But the Chur family, while noble in name, no longer stood near the center of power within Emberlight. They had, for reasons unknown, been ousted from the nobility some time ago.

  The other houses had cut ties. They were now isolated. So of course they had no access, no right, to the deeper secrets of what happened that day in Ashara.

  In fact, by the time they heard about how Seraphine claimed Dreadlance Vale and accepted the martial prodigy Kael as her personal disciple:

  They didn’t even react.

  “Whew...”

  Hakuzi finally leaned back, mouth dry, grabbing a nearby pitcher and drinking deeply before continuing:

  “My master... what should we do now?”

  He hesitated.

  “A few days ago, Dreadlance Vale made an official announcement across the entire martial realm of Emberlight, openly claiming responsibility for wiping out the Heavenreach Sect.”

  “The reason?” He cleared his throat. “Because after their master was named Leader of the Emberlight Martial Alliance, every sect sent congratulations… except the Heavenreach Sect. They remained silent. The Heir took this as a grievous insult, worthy of total extermination.”

  Xander clutched his head, panic overwhelming him:

  “She’s that tyrannical?! What am I supposed to do now?!”

  His voice cracked as he remembered something terrible. Something personal. His son, their son, had once insulted the Heir directly. A chill washed over him.

  Then Meira suddenly jumped to her feet, face twisted with emotion.

  “That Seraphine... That woman! Is she truly so overbearing?! So cruel and arrogant?! Is there no one left in this world who will stand for justice?!”

  SLAP!!

  Xander’s palm struck her with such force she flew backward. He stood over her, eyes blazing, jabbing a trembling finger at her face.

  “Shut your damn mouth, you crazy hag!! I don’t want to see you again, get out!!”

  Meira clutched her bruised cheek, silent. Slowly, she stood and limped toward the door. No one noticed her expression, head bowed, but in her eyes burned a deep, venomous madness.

  A hatred born not of fear... but of humiliation.